


Meat and Bones

by Lesch9



Category: S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
Genre: Horror, Original Character(s), Storytelling, loners, stories from the Zone, wish granter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-28
Updated: 2017-04-28
Packaged: 2018-10-24 22:22:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10750986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lesch9/pseuds/Lesch9
Summary: A group of Loners share their stories from the Zone.





	Meat and Bones

"Tell us a story" said one of the stalkers.

  
"Yes, tell us one of your fairy tales" said another, strumming absentmindedly on his guitar.

  
There was an enthusiastic ripple of agreement from around the fire.

  
The Storyteller leaned forward. He was the eldest of all the stalkers, having survived many decades in the zone. Many of its strangest legends remained only in his memory.

  
"This is for you rookie."

  
The newest stalker shifted uncomfortably, taking another gulp of vodka.

  
"When the Zone was young I knew a rookie. He lived the life of a Stalker, but didn’t have the heart of one. Unlike the true ones he had a life outside this place, a family, a home and he carried that burden with him. You could see it just looking at him. He didn’t come wearing the same rags or surplus as the rest of us. His coat was sewn by his wife, a white woolen thing that that didn't belong in this filthy place. As a rookie he got no respect and didn’t have the experience to go out on his own. Instead he joined a small group of Loners looking for artifacts in the Garbage. I saw him several times since he arrived at the Cordon. Each time his face was more drawn and the light of his eyes had faded away. He was little more than a hollow white coat when he and his group left for the heart of the Zone. They said they had had enough of hunting after Artifacts. They would go to the Wish Granter and change their fates, find whatever satisfaction life could not give them.

  
I don't know how they managed to reach it, but they found the Wish Granter. One by one they took their turns asking it for favors. Most wished for money, one for fame. At last it was the rookie’s turn. He wished that after so long being treated as a pack animal, the other stalkers would respect him. The others laughed at his wish, saying he had wasted it on something of no value. Leaving the Wish Granter they returned to the rest of us boasting of their victory. One or two took their new found fortune and returned to the world outside. Others used it to secure their place here. The rookie was the first to die. He lasted little more than a week after making his wish, then turned up as a pile of meat on the side of the road. They only recognized him from the scraps of white wool among his bones.

  
His comrades all laughed and joked at this, claiming it was no surprise the rookie had gotten it first. A month or so passed. Most of the men in his group had already come to find their money useless, returning to their old lives of hunting Artifacts for consolation. I ran into one of them at the 100 Rads around that time. He looked as terrible as a stalker should, ranting about some kind of new monster in the Zone. He claimed that he first felt it wandering through the forest. A haunting presence raised the hair on the back of his neck. Something was following him but he couldn’t see what it was. A Bloodsucker would have attacked him already. This thing, whatever it was, hung back, biding its time. When he reached the edge of the forest he finally caught sight of it and that is when he sounded truly insane. He claimed it was a ghost, thin and white. He ran for his life of course and was too afraid to leave the company of others for fear that the apparition would start hunting him again. Eventually though, he had to go on. He was found on the side of the road less than a mile away, a pile of meat and crushed bones.

  
The rest of us thought he had been lost to the Zone like many before him, nothing unusual and nothing to remember. The oddity did not stop there though. One by one the other members of the rookie’s party claimed to have experienced the same ghost, a lanky figure in a white wool coat. They turned into paranoid lunatics, sure that the rookie’s ghost was going to get them. The feeble man they once taunted had become the most terrifying anomaly in the Zone. One by one they each met the same fate. The last one’s screams could be heard for miles around, but by the time anyone reached him he was nothing more than a pile of meat on the side of the road.

  
That, stalkers, is why you never trust the Wish Granter."

"Another great ghost story" laughed one of the stalkers. The others were silent.


End file.
